Something Funny

Humour in another language is really, really hard. Some things don’t need language and are funny no matter what. Mr. Bean, for example, doesn’t need any language. It’s all slapstick (body humour and jokes) and physical humour. But, jokes and humour are often more than just someone putting a turkey on their head or hitting someone with a pie. Jokes use language. Some jokes, like a pun, use two different words that have similar sounds to make a joke. For example, look at the following joke:

Two brothers walk into the hiring office at Air Canada. The first brother says, “I want to be a pilot.” The man at the desk asks, “Well, do you have any experience?” The first brother says, “I’ve been a pilot for ten years.”

“Great” says the Air Canada official and then he turns to the second brother. “How about you? What experience do you have?”

“I’m a woodcutter,” says the second brother proudly.

The Air Canada official is confused, “A woodcutter? But, this is a job for pilots.”

“Well,” says the second brother pointing at his brother. “If I don’t cut it, where’s he going to pile it?”

As I said, this is a pun. The words “pilot” and “pile it” sound the same when you say them. So, we have the joke about a woodcutter needing someone to pile the wood, or “pile it”.

Do me a favour. Take a simple joke that you know, change it into English and post it here. Let me hear a few. And, just to tickle your funny bone, here’s another comic: